U.S. Representative Darrell Issa — my Congressman — wants to screw the American public by forcing them (us) to take all the nuclear waste the nuclear industry has ever produced — with no safe place to put it.

Meanwhile, local residents of the closed San Onofre Nuclear (Waste) Generating Station have renamed the spent fuel there as the “Darrell Issa Nuclear Waste Dump” because of his support for the plant while it was open, and his (failed) attempts to have it reopen after the plant was shut down permanently on January 31, 2012 due to faulty steam generators. And there the waste sits in enormous, thin-walled, so-called “stainless” steel casks. Now, Darrell Issa is playing on the fears of local residents who want the waste moved away from the coast in order to push his proposal. Continue reading→

Tonight I was called (by a computer) to participate in a Darrell Issa electronic Town Hall meeting. The way it works is that he talks constantly at length and you can call in a question, first screened by a staff member. I was put in a line for about 30 min listening to questions and his answers, mostly softball questions from his conservative base. On one question about the Middle East, he said that we don’t know if Israel has any nuclear weapons (it has been known for decades that they have at least 500).

I finally got recognized and told him that the number one issue in his district was San Onofre becoming a nuclear waste dump indefinitely, a huge public danger with 2000 tons of waste in a tsunami quake zone. I further said that Yucca was rejected by the DOE as not having enough room and by scientists because of deep water penetration, and he has done nothing to help get this waste moved. Then he cut me off and went on and on but I could not interject or answer or debate. All one sided. Continue reading→

When the San Onofre nuclear power plant was built, everyone was told that there was a plan to remove the radioactive waste it produced. Now it is closed, but the new plan is to leave it here indefinitely. This is an alarming turn of events for everyone who lives within 50 miles of San Onofre. The inability of government and the nuclear industry to figure out a solution has led to a lot of talk but very little action. Locally, about 2,000 tons of highly radioactive uranium and plutonium rest above ground a few hundred feet from the ocean on one side and I-5 on the other. Since there is no plan to dispose of it, this highly toxic waste will remain in our backyard for many decades (or centuries) to come.

To address this threat, a large crowd filled the San Juan Capistrano Community Center on Jan. 27 to hear a 3 hour panel discussion called “America’s Nuclear Future: Taking Action to Address Nuclear Waste.” This was a joint meeting of Edison’s Community Engagement Panel and the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington D.C. think tank. The panel focused on what local, state, and regional stakeholders can do stimulate progress on this issue which has plagued the nation for half a century. Addressing the audience were 21 panelists ranging from nuclear experts to concerned citizens. Continue reading→

Many will quickly recognize the famous Edvard Munch painting “The Scream” which was recently sold by Sotheby’s for $120 million. This primal scream may describe the reaction of many who sat through a contentious San Clemente City Council meeting on Nov. 6. The council had before it a fine resolution designed to take a small political step to toward getting nearly 2,000 tons of uranium and plutonium moved away from Zip Code 92672. Instead of passing the resolution, the council botched it. They tore it apart, emasculated it, and ended up with a resolution which was about the same as the flawed resolution they passed a year ago.

Instead of simply asking for the waste to be removed from from San Onofre, they asked for a permanent solution to all the nuclear waste problems for the entire county. They got fixated on repositories such as the one in Carlsbad, NM which closed last Feb. with fires, explosions, and radiation leaks. The nation’s only repository was supposed to last for 10,000 years but it failed after only 15. Funny thing, The Scream relates to this botched repository because they planned to bury a copy of The Scream 2150 feet underground along with the radioactive waste. Knowing that nuclear waste retains its lethal toxicity for hundreds of thousands of years, the thinking might be to warn future aliens how human civilization foolishly destroyed itself. Continue reading→

California Congressional District 49 has become the home of a large nuclear waste dump thanks to a decision of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Aug. 26 which mandates that high-level nuclear waste at San Onofre (and other nuclear power plants) be stored on-site indefinitely. The order reversed the government promise to remove the waste and take it to a safer storage location.

This curious turn of events has alarmed residents of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego Counties and resulted in a public opinion poll on selecting an appropriate name for the new waste dump. An on-line survey was started Oct. 2 and conducted by Survey Monkey. After 25 days, the overwhelming choice (92% of respondents) is to call it The Darrell Issa Nuclear Waste Dump. The other choices in the survey included The San Clemente Nuclear Waste Dump (the site shares the same Zip Code 92672 as downtown San Clemente) and The Camp Pendleton Nuclear Waste Dump (the site is owned by the U.S. Navy and is part of Marine Base Camp Pendleton). As of Oct. 27 the results were: Continue reading→

With the present Orange County political majority totally asleep you have just been had by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) — see their press release below the following commentary.

Subject: The San Clemente Nuclear Waste Dump is now almost official

The historic vote this week by the NRC to make all nuclear power plants nuclear waste dumps now makes this almost a certainty. I hope you noticed that they changed the name from “Waste Confidence” to Continued Waste Storage. The NYT said last week that experts are skeptical that a permanent repository (Plan A) will be built. So everything going on now is PLAN B: sucker the locals into turning their NPP into “continued storage” (a nuclear waste dump). Tell them how safe it is, not to worry. No need to store it deep underground in a remote area when we can store it above ground in the middle of metropolitan areas in earthquake fault zones. Reminds me of the only independent investigation of Fukushima which concluded that the accident was caused by the collusion of government and the nuclear industry who conspired to tell the public that nuclear power is completely safe. That is what we are hearing now. The CEP is a cog in this machinery, an enabler. Now Edison can walk away saying that it carefully consulted with the public. Continue reading→